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from the Mike-and-Manny-and-Wyo-say-"Hi!" dept.
https://phys.org/news/2017-09-moon-lunar-village.html (AFP)
By 2040, a hundred people will live on the Moon, melting ice for water, 3D-printing homes and tools, eating plants grown in lunar soil, and competing in low-gravity, "flying" sports.
To those who mock such talk as science fiction, experts such as Bernard Foing, ambassador of the European Space Agency-driven "Moon Village" scheme, reply the goal is not only reasonable but feasible too.
At a European Planetary Science Congress in Riga this week, Foing spelt out how humanity could gain a permanent foothold on Earth's satellite, and then expand.
He likened it to the growth of the railways, when villages grew around train stations, followed by businesses.
By 2030, there could be an initial lunar settlement of six to 10 pioneers—scientists, technicians and engineers—which could grow to 100 by 2040, he predicted.
"In 2050, you could have a thousand and then... naturally you could envisage to have family" joining crews there, Foing told AFP .
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday September 26 2017, @12:22PM (3 children)
Moon doesn't have an atmosphere so you can greatly reduce propellant need by using propulsion that doesn't depend on chemical propulsion such as a rail gun or even some sort of mechanical propulsion (such as a tether sling shot). If you have a way to catch payloads on the other side that also doesn't depend on propellant, then you can get away with no chemical propulsion at all.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday September 26 2017, @12:32PM
My guess? Building an interplanetary ship from pieces will require more control than a simple dead ballistic trajectory would be able to offer.
But you are right - slinging or catapulting pieces which can tune/brake/correct the trajectory/speed to reach the desired orbital coordinates/speed will drastically reduce the reactive fuel consumption.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday September 26 2017, @07:55PM (1 child)
Without an atmosphere the "tumbling tether / orbital wheel" space elevator becomes far more appealing as well. A design which is particularly appealing for high-traffic scenarios as the wheel can act as a "momentum battery" with only incidental moving parts and near perfect efficiency, storing the momentum of landing payloads and delivering it to those being launched.
I did some calculations several years ago suggesting that a "wheel" with a radius of a few hundred kilometers, spinning in sync with its orbit so that the rim matches speed with the ground, would (at proper launch windows in the Moon's orbit around the Earth) be capable of plucking a payload from the surface of the Moon and hurling it onto Hoffman orbits reaching a bit beyond either Mars or Venus, all while never exceeding ~1/4g of acceleration. Seems useful. And of course incoming payloads from either planet, if they arrived at exactly the right place and time, could ride the wheel down to a gentle landing on the surface.
Of course that would require comparatively slow Hoffman transfer orbits, but that's fine for inert cargo.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday September 27 2017, @12:50AM
Problem with the Moon is that, gravity speaking, it's bumpy. Very few stable orbits and a wheel a couple of hundred km wide would probably be unstable.